13 on 13

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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13 on 13
We’re starting to like this whole “13 minutes of non-stop nonsense” that WLOSers unveiled this week. We think they should take it further.

Think about it. They could have “13 minutes of nonstop hair weaves” with Diva Darcel. 13 minutes of nonstop preachin’ from Gloryhole Blunt. 13 minutes of Sheraldo shout reports. 13 minutes of nonstop puns with the Punnyman. O, the possibilities…

Mary, are the rumors true?

Word on the street is that Mary Jedlicka is leaving WLOS to go to an Ohio station. On its Web site, WLOS is now advertising for a “news anchor/reporter,” a “news reporter” and a “news reporter-bureau,” so the rumors could very well be true.

Mary J, working out of the WLOSer Rutherford County bureau, never got the respect she deserved. Mary J, we’ll miss you.

Cops in West Ashvegas
Frequent contributor Flying J has this from the other night:

“I went to the West Asheville Police/citizens advisory meeting last night. Cherub Charu was there for all of about 5 minutes just to get some pics, then left. On the news, she ‘interviewed’ a concerned citizen and made it look like she had been there for the whole meeting and talked to this lady afterwards, but she obviously did it before the meeting and then split after the camera man got some footage. Lame.”

Flight 93, clear for take-off?
Jon “Punnyman” Le went to the movies Friday to get people’s reaction to the new “Flight 93” movie about the doomed jetliner hijacked on Sept. 11 that ended up crashing in a Pennsylvania field. Passengers on the plane fought back and at stopped terrorists from crashing the plane into the White House.

The Punnyman picked out Joe Bonnaroo, or Joe Bananas or something and his family. Joe was wearing a shirt with the American flag all over it. His wife had on similarly obnoxious garb. They may also have been some of the dumbest movie-goers, but actually, their reaction is probably what we’ll be hearing a lot of.

Joe comes out of the movie and says he was moved by the family. And that the movie made him feel great about what President Bush is doing right now. That was code for: we need to be kicking some terrorist ass somewhere and Iraq’s as good a place as any.

So let’s stop right there, Joe, and you Punnyman, and everyone else headed to see this movie. Stop and get this straight – not one single hijacker was from Iraq. Saddam Hussein, the former Iraq leader, was not responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. That was the other guy, Osama bin Laden.

So going to see the movie, then coming and saying stuff like the war in Iraq is justified is just plain wrong. Beyond wrong. It shows an incomprehensible lack of simple cognitive ability.

‘Prom pictures of a very different kind’
Michelle Boudin, who read the newspaper Friday morning, picked up on a front-page report about the brazen theft of prom dresses and more from over at Merle Norman.

This was more than just a simple shoplifting, Michelle said. The young thieves took eight to 10 dresses, 20 pairs of shoes, 12 tiaras, plus evening bags and gloves. Michelle even showed us how easy it was to crumple up a dress and stuff it in her back pocket.

Here’s the fun part: the store had security camera video of the thieves, plus school officials apparently were tipped by police and school officials took pictures at Asheville High School’s prom, showing some girls wearing the stolen goodies.

Police arrested one young guy and two young women, including a former Asheville High homecoming queen, Michelle said. And police are promising to arrest kids from Reynolds and Owen high schools as well, she said.

Spittin’ crazy
Some dude got into trouble on Friday and it all started at the Ingles on Patton Avenue. He was panhandling, and police were called. He moved on, and apparently demanded money from the RBC Centura Bank down the road. Police were called again, and that’s where they got him.

He didn’t go down easily. He tried to kick out a cop car window, and he ended up spitting at cops, saying that he had Hepatitis C. They had him hog-tied and squirming on the parking lot pavement until the fight went out of him.

In other news…
A minivan rear-ended a bus in Canton and nobody was seriously injured… There was a fire at Flemming Chiropractic on Haywood Road and it gutted the building… The 391st Engineering Battalion soldiers are coming home to Ashvegas on Tuesday… some people don’t like the new, Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner.